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Projections show sharp increases in public spending on long-term care services across Europe. However, a purely cost based focus on long-term care services is economically misleading. Private and public expenditure on long-term care services directly and indirectly generate income in the form of salaries, taxes and social security contributions. The aim of this paper is to quantify the economic impact and multipliers of long-term care services for the first time. Based on an econometric regional input-output model for Austria, we estimate the direct, indirect and induced effects of public and private expenditures on value added, employment, taxes and social security contributions. According to our results, each Euro spent on long-term care services is associated with domestic value added of 1.7 € as well as 0,70 € in taxes and social security contributions. The economic multipliers of the long-term care services are comparatively high due to the high share of wages and salaries in direct expenditure and the associated high direct value added. Public expenditure on professional care services should therefore not be regarded merely as a cost factor in the public budget. Rather, this rapidly growing economic sector is also an increasingly important economic factor in a time of ageing societies.

The study estimates the tax revenue effects of changes in alcohol excise taxes for Spain, France and Poland. In addition to excise tax and VAT revenue effects, the price pass-through and the impact on market volumes is estimated. The main parameters – the tax pass-through rate of excise duties to consumer prices and the price elasticities of demand for alcoholic beverages – are estimated via state-of-the-art econometric approaches based a combination of household-levels and macro data. In a first step, the literature survey finds very diverse estimates for price elasticities of alcoholic beverages. We find evidence that excise taxes are typically fully passed onto consumer prices. Using micro data at the household level, we find price elasticities of demand for Spain, France and Poland which are higher (in absolute terms) than those typically found in the literature. This implies that price increases lead to larger drops in sales volume and, thus, tax increases might not result in the expected additional tax revenues. A macro level estimation of the relation between excise tax rates and revenues confirms a Laffer-curve type relationship, i.e., tax revenues cease to increase if excise tax rates reach a certain threshold level. The empirical evidence in this study suggests that the tax rates for beer and wine are well below this revenue maximising saddle point, but the evidence is inconclusive for spirits in the countries in question. Using the simulation tool developed in this study, it is found that a 1 percent increase in the excise tax rates of each alcoholic beverage prevailing in 2017 in each of the countries will have the strongest negative effect on the market volumes of spirits, while for beer and wine these increases translate to by and large higher collected tax revenues. Noteworthily, in some scenarios excise tax increases result in decreases in VAT revenues due to a significant reduction in the higher value on-trade sales.

The design of tax systems has a considerable impact on the distribution of income and wealth at the household and the individual level, and due to gender-differentiated socio-economic conditions also in a gender perspective. One of the most important areas of taxation is the taxation of personal incomes. Besides the level of income tax rates and the design of the income tax schedule (progressive versus flat tax schedule), the system of household taxation (joint versus individual taxation), the determination of taxable income and the design of tax exemptions (tax allowances versus credits), particularly child-related ones, are crucial determinants of the distributional effects and work incentives of the personal income tax. The study presents an overview of the microsimulation results for selected provisions of the personal income tax system on income distribution and work incentives. The microsimulations are based on EUROMOD for six selected EU countries: Germany, Austria, Spain, Czech Republic, UK, and Sweden, countries of different "families" of welfare and taxation traditions.

Die Industriekonjunktur befindet sich in Österreich derzeit im Abschwung. Die Welthandelsflaute wirkt belastend, auf wichtigen Zielmärkten bleibt die Nachfrage nach österreichischen Erzeugnissen aber hoch (USA, MOEL). Die Produktionsschwäche der deutschen Autoindustrie, die sich auf die österreichische Zulieferbranche übertrug, klingt ab, und der Handelskonflikt zwischen China und den USA hat sich entspannt. Zudem stützt die anhaltend kräftige Nachfrage nach Dienstleistungen die Gesamtwirtschaft. Im Jahresdurchschnitt 2019 verlangsamt sich das Wirtschaftswachstum in Österreich auf 1,7% (von 2,7% im Jahr 2018), stabilisiert sich aber im Jahresverlauf und wird 2020 etwa 1,8% betragen.

We test whether intellectual property rights foster or hinder innovation by estimating IV structural equations for a large sample of Swiss firms. We find that better appropriability conditions at the industry level raise the number of competitors. However, conditional on the given industry structure, individual firms face fewer competitors, if they actually use intellectual property rights. The further impact of fewer competitors is to raise R&D, when initial competition is strong, but to reduce it, when initial competition is weak ("inverted U").

The assessment of future economic development by Austrian industrial companies did not deteriorate further in February, optimistic and pessimistic assessments now almost balance each other out. Against the backdrop of weak world trade, there are also positive economic signals: in Germany, the situation in the automotive sector appears to be stabilising and the trade conflict between China and the USA is easing.

The trade conflict between the USA and China is increasingly weighing on the global economy. In the USA, the government shutdown dampened the optimism of private households. The German economy is still suffering from the upheavals in the automotive sector. The Austrian economy is proving to be robust in view of the global burdens. Here as well, however, the majority of indicators point to a downturn.